«Cas sluhu» (1989)

The time for lackeys

On the 8^th of April, 1975 Vaclav Havel wrote a letter to the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Gustav Husak about a moral, cultural and intellectual crisis of the «normalized» Czechoslovakia. Particularly, the playwright wrote about current political system, which pushes the born lackeys to the top, which are ready for any humiliation and willing at all times to sacrifice their neighbors and their own honor for a chance to ingratiate themselves with those in power.

Vaclav Havel summarized, that such a situation can only lead toward the gradual erosion of all moral standards, the breakdown of all criteria of decency, and the widespread destruction of confidence in the meaning of values such as sincerity and honor. In 14 years after the letter, when CSSR was living its last days, a young debutante Irena Pavlásková shot «Cas sluhu» - a film about Czechoslovakia in words of Vaclav Havel.

In beginning of the 1980s, a young medical student Dana dates a young international relations student Marek, until the day when young Prague inhabitant and a future young diplomat dumps this village girl. Dana gets so devastated and in order to kick Marek, she persuades her girlfriend Lenka to «lend» her boyfriend Milan (a young functionary in the Foreign Ministry) for a one-month marriage.

In 1980, Krzysztof Zanussi showed in «Constance» the closed and unpleasant world of the people, who were able to travel abroad and get foreign currency. Those were the workers, but the «crème» was functionaries in Foreign Ministry and diplomats, which were, rather, specific people. There were big dossiers on every diplomat and functionary and one snitch was a ground for dismissal. That is why their sphere was not characterized by such words, as trust and mutual help.

Any society, which artificially rations some goods (including foreign travel), oppresses freedom ad have a strong repressive apparatus, becomes crueler and nervous. The most enterprising inhabitants of such society are using any methods of advancement and they have real blood on their hands. Later, such people would start a cruel circus of wild capitalism, which was always quite familiar.

In 1980’s Czechoslovakia nobody believes in socialism and in two hours of the film, the only symbol of socialism is a portrait of Brezhnev in some government office. In this Czechoslovakia, everybody is concerned with self-advancement and the success is measured by your level of unscrupulousness.

Dana says that she moved to Prague in order to leave her unscrupulous mother and to earn an honest living as a doctor. Despite that, her subconsciousness remembers only one way of success and she catches the golden train, Dana becomes a cynical and calculating bitch. Even her looks are altered – from a bleak student she transforms into sexy woman, which radiates cruelty, ruthlessness and power.

New Dana promotes only herself and other people for her are merely garbage and instruments, and she doesn’t even bother to hide such attitude. She teaches others how to manipulate, play a double-face and to promote yourself at any price. Dana even helps to further the career of detested husband in order to get a grip on more luxury items. And in the end, a hard currency prostitute would point out Dana as equal, but maybe prostitute’s labor is more «honorable», than Dana’s.

The same letter to Husak, have an interesting passage about societal attitude for the opposing individuals. Vaclav Havel wrote, that those indifferent neighbors may expel opposing person from their midst, for appearance sake while sympathizing with him in secret or in private, hoping to still their conscience by clandestine approval of someone who acts as they themselves should, but cannot.

According to this words, Dana gets «flashes of conscience». She privately praises a colleague of Milan, who is not afraid to speak out, she asks mother to help with employment of Milan’s ex-girlfriend and even speaks out against Milan’s authorities. Furthermore, she takes a pleasant history researcher as a lover and feeds him stories about her upcoming divorce. Does it remind you about a gangster, who sponsors classical music and church renovation?

Despite that, when Dana is faced with true, but materially poor love, she sticks to the unloved husband, because he could provide her with foreign trips and she lost an ability to work and converse with usual people. No, love and truth would never prevail over lies and hatred in her life. And there are tens of thousands of Danas.

Combing the realistic portrait of «normalized» Czechoslovakia, the Director reaches another level with the universal story about internal void, which could happen in any country and under any regime. I agree, that «Cas sluhu» is a film, which parallels such films as «Decalogue» by Krzysztof Kieslowski.

«Cas sluhu» was released on the 1^st of November, 1989, and Vaclav Havel was unanimously elected as the President by the Federal Assembly on the 29^th of December, 1989. Vaclav Havel tried to heal the sick society, but Danas started to rip off the country. Nevertheless, Vaclav Havel was able to smooth this process, not unlike the other ex-socialistic countries, and not to lose his soul after 14 years of the presidency.

Watch «Cas sluhu», without any politics, maybe it will help you to think.

"Žert" (1969)

And then I realized how powerless I was to revoke my own joke…

On the 1^st of January, 1990, the new President of Czechoslovakia Vaclav Havel made a New Year address to the nation. Man, who was merely six months ago labeled as a «Western agent» and «bourgeois degenerate», didn’t use the new media power in order to wreck revenge on his numerous adversaries.

Instead of that, he addressed the national moral crisis. Vaclav Havel said the following: «The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we got used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore each other, to care only for ourselves…».

24 years before the Velvet Revolution, Milan Kundera wrote his first novel «The Joke» about Czechoslovakia of the 1940s and 1960s. In 1988 «The Unbearable Lightness of Being» was filmed and after that Kundera banned any further films on his books. But in the last days of the Prague Spring, the writer wrote a screenplay for «The Joke».

One of the main features of Socialistic Czechoslovakia was an official return to the roots. The state sponsored the folk festivities; on every march there were folk songs and traditional clothing; there were films about old Bohemia. Along with the picturesque Middle Ages there were also real Middle Ages.

In the Middle Ages there were no tolerance of free humor and if someone ratted on a joker, he would be seriously punished, even burned. The totalitarian regimes also never tolerated any humor about ideology, and the only permitted laughter was about adversaries (bourgeoisie, untermensch  and so on). You could suppress human nature, but the free thought would always find a way out.

Even in the scariest 1930s there were cynical jokes («Comrade Stalin, the representatives of the culture functionaries have broken out! They wanted to be whipped in advance! »). Those jokes were quietly told and quietly laughed, because if some other heard them, the joker would get in serious trouble. Such joker would be tried before inquisition, which doesn’t pay attention to such nonsense, as presumption of innocence.

Student Ludvick Jan was quietly laughing about the ideology and was pursing the model communist girl. When the girl came to communistic summer school, Ludvick have decided to troll her and send her a postcard with laughs about official slogans and, to add some pepper, praised Trotsky. The postcard is properly forwarded to the party channels and Ludvick’s life takes a U-turn…

All totalitarian regimes are creating collectives with an official goal to provide the joint working, friendship and help space. In reality, the totalitarian regimes were deliberately putting people against each other, because it is much easier to manipulate atomized individuals.

The real «collective» was tried on Ludvick Jan and on the party meeting, where every word is turned against you and all of his ex-friends were trying to outdo each other in crucifying their «amoral ex-comrade». His «best friend» Pavel Zemanek is very hard-working in it, because he wants to become a top apparatchik. So, in one day Ludvick Jan is turned from «comrade» to «class enemy».

The army’s work brigade, put up of class enemies, is an Absurdistan, where the joke against the regime could be painted in a right colors and the truthful adherence to Party principles is a basis for a harsh punishment from superiors and cruel hazing from your fellow soldiers. Soon, the «civil» Czechoslovakia would also become an Absurdistan.

After 1953, the Middle Ages were toned down and some class enemies, including Ludvick, are allowed to reintegrate into society. An ex-student comes back to his native town, where there is another state-sanctioned folk festivity, Ride of the Kings. Ludvick, who tasted the real Middle Ages, is indifferent to such cosplay.

The Czechoslovak society of 1964 is morally contaminated, which consists of «internal emigres» (Christians), conformists, regular folk and careerists. The careerists are no longer believing in any official ideology and they just want to keep their privileged placed and to sleep with pretty young girls. The young people are repelled by state-sanctioned history and they listen to rock-and-roll, not the Czech folk.

Ludvick came to the town in order to seduce Helena, a wife of Professor of Marxism Pavel Zemanek, and he thinks that it would be a cruel joke on his old adversary. As in 1949, the joke did the opposite effect. This joke would trigger a lot of other jokes, aimed at innocent people.

There are different kinds of jokes, including stupid, cruel and sarcastic. Milan Kundera wrote a novel about jokes and their consequences in totalitarian and post-totalitarian society. The film truly depicted the moral malady of the society and you would better understand Vaclav Havel’s motto «Truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred!».